DVD Reviews

Gulliver's Travels (2 Disc Set with Gulliver's Fun Pack) – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Apr 25, 2011, 13:44 GMT

Jack Black (Kung Fu Panda, School of Rock) is larger than life in this epic comedy-adventure based on the classic tale. When a shipwreck lands a lowly mailroom clerk named Gulliver (Black) on the fantastical island of Lilliput, he transforms into a giant — in size and ego. Gulliver’s tall tales and heroic deeds win the hearts of the tiny Lilliputians, but when he loses it all and puts his ...more

“So you might as well face it, you’re never really going to get any bigger than this.”

If your English class is taking a test on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and you write an essay about the big robot fight at the finale – you’re going to fail. Jack Black’s big, dumb film takes little from the novel, but if you’re a three-year-old you might find it fun.

Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) works in the newspaper mailroom and doesn’t have the ambition to go further. He is training his new employee (T.J. Miller) who notices that he has a crush on travel writer Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet). At the end of the day his new employee is his boss since the fellow talks his way into the promotion.

The downtrodden Gulliver attempts to ask Darcy out, but stumbles into auditioning for a writing position. He then develops writer’s block and plagiarizes his assignment. The impressed Darcy allows him to go on a trip to Bermuda to investigate a story about the Bermuda Triangle.

Gulliver sets off alone in a boat to the destination and a storm has him wash up on the shores of Lilliput. The residents are much smaller than he and the unconscious Gulliver is captured and enslaved by General Edward (Chris O’Dowd), who dubs him a beast, and brought before King Benjamin (Billy Connolly), Queen Isabelle (Catherine Tate), and Princess Mary (Emily Blunt).

Gulliver is put in a cavernous cell and meets Horatio (Jason Segel) who dared to look upon Mary and was imprisoned by the surly Edward. Edward is using Gulliver to till fields and other menial tasks when invaders from Blefuscu, Lilliput’s enemy kingdom, try to kidnap Princess Mary and set fire to the palace.

Gulliver saves both Mary and the King and is the hero of Lilliput, much to the chagrin of Edward, so Gulliver begins to tell inflated stories about the Isle of Manhattan and his own importance there.

I might speculate that the (very) late Jonathan Swift might be happy that he’s not give accreditation during the film’s opening credits, only screenwriters Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller get mentioned. I wasn’t exactly expecting a straight retelling of Swift’s satirical novel, but his omission didn’t set well.

Of course, we’re talking about a Jack Black picture so there is no expecting literary height. Black plays Gulliver as big and dumb, which pretty much sticks with the actor’s screen persona. He seems to be surrounded by a game international cast, but nothing really seems to gel together.

Some of the cast is even criminally underused (Catherine Tate has very little to do). Chris O’Dowd usually plays sadsacks so it’s interesting to see him take on the villain’s role.

Things move along at a breakneck speed and defy logic (like I was expecting any), but that Gulliver goes to do this story and he’s basically given a boat and GPS and told to go that way.

Huh? Not to mention that Gulliver’s gargantuan appetites should’ve depleted Lilliput’s resources rather quickly (his cup of coffee probably uses a year’s worth of beans) and that they can build structures the size of Rhode Island in days.

It’s one gag after another and most of them don’t trigger huge laughs. The film cost over $100 million to bring to the screen and only made a little of $40 million at the US box office so it was pretty much a flop here (international box office added enough to keep Fox from having a coronary maybe).

Gulliver’s Travels is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Disc one’s special features are only relegated to a 90 second gag reel (more like a alternate scene). If you get the single disc version that’s all you get. This two-disc edition adds a bonus disc entitled “Gulliver’s Fun Pack.”

That disc has a 5 minute travel show parody called “I Don’t Know… with Lemuel Gulliver” starring Black, 15 minutes of deleted scenes, the 8 minute “Little and Large” making of, the 6 minute “Jack Black thinks Big,” the 5 minute “War Song Dance,” the 6 minute “In Character with Jack Black” from the Fox Movie Channel, the 5 minute “In Character with Jason Segel” from FXM, the 22 minute “Life after Film School” where director Rob Letterman talks with three film school students, 6 minutes of premiere footage, the 2 minute trailer, and the “Gulliver’s Foosball Challenge” game.

Gulliver’s Travels isn’t really as gigantic a film as it wanted to be. Maybe so if you’re under the age of five, but it’s too much drivel if are older than that.